Stew Redwine (00:00):
Hit it. Ad Infinitum is the only podcast solely focused on audio ads, advertising the creatives who make them, the strategies that shape them. The latest thinking, driving the evolution of this space. And my favorite part, a roundup of recent audio ads with analysis by yours truly to Red Wine. And each episode's guest. This is season two, episode 11 of Ad infinitum titled The Authors of Audio Branding. In this episode, we're talking to two experts who literally wrote the book about audio branding. It's called Shocker Audio Branding. And we will be discussing the evolution of what we know of as audio branding and what the future of multisensory marketing looks like, which is really the way most folks are talking about it, that lumps audio in there, including voice marketing and what does that look like for brands. So for this special episode, I'm thrilled to welcome two thought leaders in the world of Sonic branding.

(00:55):
Colleen Fahe, US managing director at Czm Song and Larry Minsky, professor at Columbia College Chicago and both co-authors of audio branding using Sound to build your brand and Voice Marketing harnessing the power of conversational AI to drive customer engagement. Colleen and Larry have shaped how I think about sound and its role in modern branding. Their book Audio branding was one of the first ones I dug into once I made the decision to like set my heart and my mind on understanding and learning the craft of sonic branding, like it was a decision point, I had to focus on it. And I think it was through, it was either Sound and marketing with Gina Eisha or Dallas Taylor's 20,000 Hertz that like I heard of audio branding and then it was like, well I'm gonna do this. And I listened to it, listened to the audio version of the book and took notes as I do with my pile of note cards. But it really helped early on like forming my thoughts on like, okay, as I start digging into this and getting into this. So this is a cool episode. So Colleen and Larry, welcome to Add Infinitum. I was planning on reaching out to you guys at some point. I was intimidated because you're published authors, but I'm grateful you reached out Larry, and I'm so excited to have you both here. Thanks

Larry Minsky (02:10):
For having us.

Colleen Fahey (02:10):
Yeah, I'm very honored to be here and also to be able to talk about my favorite topic. So thanks for inviting us.

Stew Redwine (02:16):
Well thank you guys both for joining. I'm excited as well. Today we're gonna dive into the heart of what is making Sonic branding increasingly part of the conversation as more brands are thinking in a multi-sensory way about building connections with customers. And that's the way I like to think of it is Mark Ritz's customer funnel of Build, nudge and connect. We're building memory structures, building a relationship, we're nudging people towards the way we want to connect, which includes a transaction and then ultimately connecting. And increasingly we're thinking as marketers and brands and advertisers in a multi-sensory way. And audio has become a strategic tool for creating emotional connections 'cause of what an emotional powerhouse it is. And we've talked about that a lot on ad infinitum. And Colleen and Larry know this very well. Their book Audio branding lays the groundwork for how brands like McDonald's, Intel and others have crafted sonic identities that have become globally recognized.

(03:11):
And if you're a chief audio officer listening to this, I suggest you read or listen to this book. Like if we were in an airplane and it was going down, I would suggest you put on a parachute. It's just a suggestion, you do what you want, but I suggest you listen to audio branding if you're taking your audio marketing seriously as a chief audio officer, definitely read or listen to this book, such a Treat having Larry and Colleen on the show together in the studio. So let's get into it. We're gonna discuss how brands can leverage sound as an integral part of their identity, building trust recognition and emotional resonance with consumers and analyze some recent ads from one advertiser I'm keeping as a surprise in particular and grade how they're showing up in audio as a whole. We're gonna listen to a few of their ads that I heard out there and I want to get Colleen and Larry's opinions on. But before we do that, I have some questions for you guys. You guys ready to go?

Colleen Fahey (04:00):
Sure, let's do it.

Stew Redwine (04:01):
We're ready. So let's start with the basics. Colleen, for our listeners who are unfamiliar with the term, can you explain what audio branding is and why it's such a critical element in today's marketing mix? Or has that term changed? Like do you think audio branding is sonic branding? Like what is it, how would you name it and where do you see it fitting in the marketing mix?

Colleen Fahey (04:20):
So when we started to think about audio branding, it was being called audio branding in Europe, especially Germany. But it seems that here in the United States when an RFP comes through, it says sonic branding. So I've kind of shifted over to Sonic branding even though the book which we wrote in 20 16 20 17 still says audio branding. Anyway, you asked what it is. What it is is branding that doesn't use pencils and colors, it's branding that uses sounds, it uses rhythm and energy and density of sound and instrumentation and it seeks to let people understand your brand better, remember it better and attend to it, pay more attention to it. And it's very successful in doing all of those things. The reason that people should be really paying attention to sonic branding right now is that people's attention spans are getting more and more limited. And sometimes people are experiencing this layered attention where they're paying attention to three things at once.

(05:24):
And one of the first things sonic branding can do is draw attention. And that's been really well studied. You can't get attribution, you can't get recognition, you can't get memory if you don't get attention first. So sonic branding really helps you get attention, pull your attention to the screen, even if it's a TV screen but also a radio sound. So drawing your attention is the first thing. And it works better than visuals for drawing attention. When your attention is scattered, you can attend to music without having to pay close attention to it. You can hear it, you can absorb it, you can remember it without really focusing on it.

Larry Minsky (06:05):
And if I could add one more thing, we need to differentiate between jingles and an audio brand. A jingle, the music carries a verbal message, call one 800, blah blah blah, where an audio brand is distinct to the personality of the brand and conveys the attributes of the brand in some way through sound. You wanna differentiate that. So when you're thinking about an audio brand, you don't think of the old school jingle, some of which have become such associated with that brand that it is their audio brand, but it's the origin is different. And one other important point to consider with audio branding is that we're in more and more audio and enabled environments. So the more places you hear the sound as well. So it's not just, it does break through, but also there's more opportunity today with audio.

Colleen Fahey (06:54):
Yes, the idea that your audio brand is only for commercials is a pretty old fashioned idea because now it could be your ATM sound, it could also be in your headphones giving you signals. It could be, or your recipe videos, it could be in your TikTok or Instagram feeds. And it gets more powerful as people hear it over and over in different environments. It might not sound exactly the same each time. It might be adapted to the environment itself, but it would always root back to a DNA. That's your brand's sound.

Stew Redwine (07:28):
Well thank you both. There's so many side quests. We could go on <laugh>, so I've gotta keep it focused. But I think it's interesting you point out, and that's why I had that question about audio branding versus sonic branding, that it was like it was going one direction and that's how they're referring to it in Europe. And then in America it's taken on this name of sonic branding, which you know, to me the definition whether it was be audio branding or sonic branding is how a brand shows up strategically and intentionally in audio with consistency and distinct audio assets, right? Distinctly and consistently. So to me that's the definition of it. And then like an audio logo to me is the smallest divisible unit of sound that is still instantly and recognizable as that brand, right? So I kind of think of like if I hear a Michael Jackson song, I can recognize it's a Michael Jackson song pretty quick. Absolutely. All I have to hear is he, he and I think Michael Jackson. So in the same way with brands, whether it's, that's where Larry, I'd like to actually kind of parse a little bit. To me a jingle could be the smallest divisible unit of sound that could be, to me it ladders up as part of a sonic brand or an audio brand. Why are you kind of pulling it off to one side?

Larry Minsky (08:31):
Well some jingles have become audio brands, but when jingles were so popular powerful back in the sixties and historically they were not written to be distinctive in the musical sense, they were written to carry verbal messaging. So some have emerged into an audio brand, but that is not how they were developed. They didn't think of the overall totality of the environment of what the sound means. They thought about how can I use this music to carry a song message.

Stew Redwine (09:04):
I understand. So I see the distinction there. Yeah and especially if it's a super cluttered space, I mean the real trick is how are we showing up consistently and strategically And in the book, Colleen, I'll start with you. You highlight the importance of consistency paired with the evolution in audio branding. Can you give me or give the listeners an example of how a brand can evolve its sonic identity while still maintaining the core elements for recognition? Like or if there's a brand or a story that comes to mind around that idea?

Colleen Fahey (09:33):
The brand that comes to mind for me is the French national railway system called SNCF. That started by wanting to be, just say they were leaders in transportation and then they wanted to add about three years later the idea that they were an ecological way to move. So even though they kept the same tune, they changed the instrumentation to be more acoustic and it felt more ecological. But then later they wanted to make it speedy. So they added another sound which was zoom that gave the idea that this is a faster way to move, this is what the original sounded like and here's the evolved sound. So you can take the same sound, do do, do do, but you can execute it different ways to give a different meaning to that brand. And that way you can evolve when your brand position evolves. Does that work for you?

Stew Redwine (10:30):
Yeah, I think that was good. So Larry, we've seen brands embrace platforms like podcasts, streaming services and voice assistance. Like we're thinking of all of that when we're thinking about audio. How should brands tailor their sonic brand, their sonic strategy across these different platforms while still trying to maintain brand cohesion? Like how important is that in audio?

Larry Minsky (10:50):
Well brand cohesion is very important. Once you get into the voice environment, there's no visual. There are some voice assistants that have screens, but most are screenless. So what is a brand if you can't see the brand colors, if you can't see the logo, if you can't see the font or the visual execution. So you need to think of what is the brand in a sound environment only and that's probably where you wanna start. And then you work your way to everything else. Do we convey it just through the notes?

Colleen Fahey (11:22):
So a podcaster for instance now pretty much will have a voice, of course the voice that you recognize but also a piece of music that's an intro. Maybe some transitional pieces of music, an outro. And that becomes like the colors for the brand because you can't see the colors. So you need to add personality and meaning through something else. And sound effects as well as sonic branding and music are your good friends. And that also if you're going to have a voice, an AI voice, the voice can also have music and sound effects and particular kinds of textures that make you think of the brand.

Stew Redwine (12:04):
Yeah and that's why I feel like your book is required reading. It needs to be because now I can take for granted now that I've dug into this and focused on this, it's like this of course, well everybody knows how to, I don't know, slalom skiing, you know, but it's like if I go back to being a beginner, I'm just trying to get up on the ski for crying out loud and then kick a ski and then you know, so I have to keep that in mind. But it's so simple to me like the question that just keeps coming up over and over and your guys' answers just spoke to this was can they recognize your brand with their eyes closed? That's the question. And you can define that broadly. So we don't necessarily need to get lost in tactically how it's executed. While I do appreciate point out that nuance Larry of like, you know, if you just jump to tactics, it's just like we need to jingle, well be careful like what comes preloaded in that execute well, it's a way to transmit, you know, words you know using.

(12:54):
Okay, well that's a good call. So we need to back up. Well how do we want people to feel when they think about our brand? And then do we want that to match how our brand shows up in other places? So I guess I would ask both of you to answer this one. Let's say I am a brand, I'm a chief audio officer, I'm listening to this and I have a very divine visual look. Let's say I have an app that has a sound that's part of it and I have a great, you know, internal team. Like I know how I show up visually and I already have some pieces of an audio brand. How do I then bring this to life? How do I start to focus and activate actually developing my audio brand or my Sonic brand?

Colleen Fahey (13:30):
I'll tell you my process or CM SOS process is exactly like a visual branding process. You know, you do your competitive analysis, you find out where there's gaps in the marketplace that you could fill, you start to bring sounds in to listen to, to create mood boards, mood boards to say okay, is this an effervescent brand and it makes you feel happy at the end of the day and it's an everyday brand or is this a serious brand that does its research and then it creates possibilities and then you can really trust it. Those have really different sounds that will be associated with them. So you go competitive research, then you go to the mood boards which are actually audio and then you go to creative development and you come up with some alternative creative. We give it to several composers who work for us and each one will do it in his or her own way.

(14:19):
And then we winnow it down. Sometimes we get down to two and at that point might do research to find out is it conveying what we want it to convey? Does it have the right energy, do people think it's distinctive? And then you have a sort of a DNA for your brand and at that point you can start moving it into anything. You can make it part of your podcast, you can take parts of it, redesign them for signals inside your apps. You can have it for your meetings and events and have it get people excited and anticipatory and ready to listen to a speaker. You can use it to score your radio commercials, you can put it in your recipe videos, your makeup videos. And you have so many touch points that you are going to need to put sonic to that you haven't thought about yet. And it would be fun to actually do a brainstorm with you right now on that.

Stew Redwine (15:12):
Yes, exactly. Like I said, it's hard to contain this conversation To me it just comes back like the power of sound and where it's process in the brain, same places, memory, same places emotion, just the fact that the first sonic brand any of us learned was our own name and the names mom and dad, you know, or our parents, whatever. Our caregivers were like we are trained sonically and it's our quickest sense. Like that one I can't get over and I can't keep talking about it 'cause it's just so cool to me that oh yeah, they use a starting gun in the Olympics. They don't use a light. Right. It's actually faster than if they were all touched at the same time. It's faster than touch.

Colleen Fahey (15:47):
Absolutely.

Stew Redwine (15:48):
So it's just like okay, I need to make sure however I can recognize like oh that's the parent from peanuts. Like oh yeah, okay I know who that is. I need to make sure it's recognizable and it's consistent. I mean Larry, if you were coaching somebody coming into it for the first time. 'cause we do have people that are just frankly, and I'll be honest, like as we're talking with different people and exploring it, it's intimidating to kind of even know where to start because of something you said that I say too that's like so obvious and yet I feel like almost needs to be said at the beginning of any conversation about this stuff is there's nothing you can look at that makes it difficult.

Larry Minsky (16:24):
Exactly. There's nothing to look at. But marketers know design, they know the process of branding visually and all you have to do is just say, I got this because I've done the visual brand. I know I thought through all that stuff. They might not be a musician, but most marketers are not the designer. They bring in designers, they bring in the musicians. You just need to find the musicians who understand brand. And that's where an audio branding firm, a sonic branding firm comes in handy because they understand both what is a brand and what is sound. So I would start there. I do want to add something to what you said earlier and that is sound being the quickest. It is our first defense and that's one of the psychological powers of audio brand is it focuses your visual looking at a screen with all these different animals on it and you hear an animal sound, you're gonna find that animal quicker than everything else. You're gonna be able to identify it. And it goes back to our defenses that walking, you know, in the fields years ago and you hear a twig break, you're going to know to run from the tiger or whatever's running after you to eat you. And so the power of audio branding goes back to that. It's a defense.

Stew Redwine (17:34):
Yeah. And that's incredible that it's fully developed at birth. Vision isn't fully developed at birth, it's 360 and it's always on. So it's incredibly powerful. And to your point, linking it to our very survival like number one job, stay alive, go fast, don't die. I'm gonna be inconsistent when I try to reach that sense of people or I'm going to be consistent. Which do you choose? You know <laugh>, it's like, it seems so obvious and yet man, even just thinking about the style of a, you know the tone of announcers you use the tone of the announcer's voice or just the style of the music, just hemming that in a little bit. Like what do you guys think about that? Just defining lane lines. Even if like the idea of actually making a pneumonic or a sound seems too esoteric or too hard to get to

Colleen Fahey (18:18):
That is a good way to start. Especially if you have a retail location that you should have ideas about how your sound should be selected. You might say we don't want any really loud voice first people singing, but we might want acoustic instrumentation. We might want a sound where the tempo is guided, where tempo is in a particular range so people aren't either anxious or sleepy. So there's many ways you could guide your sound before a sonic brand. But I wanna reassure your listeners that if they've done their work on branding and they know their brand and they know what it stands for, they can get a sonic brand pretty easily because that is what a sonic branding agency is trained to do. It's trained to take the values of the brand, the personality of the brand and translate it into a musical composition that can guide all of your other sonic touchpoints.

Stew Redwine (19:16):
And if I were to want to play a few examples from CZM song of some brands you've developed, could we uniquely segue into a montage right now?

Colleen Fahey (19:25):
We could. There might be some that you recognize and some that you might not recognize. <laugh>, yes, we could definitely do a montage. One of the ones that I think is a highly successful sonic brand and sonic logo is USAA that captures the camaraderie of military people when they're together because that brand is about providing insurance to the military and their families. And a new one that's just coming out is a revisit of something that was famous in the nineties and it has not been forgotten. And that is Maybelline, maybe it's Maybelline. Would you like to hear the way that Maybelline has reinvented? Maybe it's Maybelline,

Stew Redwine (20:10):
There's no maybe Yes, it's a hundred percent yes I want to hear it. Let's go.

Colleen Fahey (20:15):
Maybe it's Maybelline. What feels so great about that jingle coming back as a sonic brand is that it seems to be inspiring activity on Instagram and TikTok and people are doing remixes of it and doing dances to it and putting themselves in the pictures with the celebrities and just cavorting around and even creating animations of the product as if it were dancing to the tune. So it's not only these days, it's not only about listening, it's also about playing and involving yourself and using your own creativity to bring yourself to the party.

Larry Minsky (20:53):
The marketer has to be pretty brave to put it out there to let people play with it and adjust it. But that's part of the power of audio branding is that people adopt it and start using it in their tiktoks.

Stew Redwine (21:07):
Yeah, it's awesome to see. I love the playfulness and like you're saying that it's people, you put your thing down, flip it and reverse it. You know they take it and they make it their own and there's a lot that's changing in audio and as audio branding continues to evolve, especially with the advancements in AI and voice technology and like your guys' latest book and voice marketing, what do the two of you see as the next frontier for sonic branding? And Larry, I'd like to start with you.

Larry Minsky (21:30):
I don't know if you'd call it the next frontier, but it is growing wildly here in the US. If you look at Europe, they're much more advanced in the use of audio branding and it's much more in the infancy here in the US. So just even understanding how you can use it in across all of your touchpoints, voice technology, AI is gonna get better and better assistance are gonna get better and better audio assistance and that's gonna drive the need for more distinctive audio environments.

Colleen Fahey (22:00):
I also think that we'll be more nimble with our sonic branding. We probably shouldn't design somebody's main brand using AI because it has to be by necessity, it would be derivative and would sound like somebody else's. But if you design your Sonic DNA and Sonic logo and then let AI do the variations on the theme, it probably would be even more nimble and useful and agile for companies to put it in even more touch points and get people to really recognize your brand whenever they encounter it. Even if their eyes are closed, even if they're on a phone, even if they're just listening. And the more they hear it of course the more they will like it 'cause that's how audio works.

Larry Minsky (22:48):
One of the things to think about with AI is there are actually three different kinds of AI that I know of and there's probably more. One is predictive AI and that's great and more very powerful in business about what should we do then there's generative AI and that's what we're all talking about with chat GPT and then there's conversational ai which is how do you use AI to talk back and forth and voice marketing and generative and conversational can work together. So once you have your audio logo and your audio brand, you could then go in and have a conversation and it could be inserted in the appropriate places and the appropriate ways eventually.

Stew Redwine (23:29):
So the big things I'm hearing you say are that use leverage the power of AI to help customize based off of a core that you make sure that you have strategically designed with the people that are involved to accomplish specific goals that you've set out to accomplish. Which is something we didn't touch on earlier, but something that I think about a lot with Sonic branding is like, you know, what's the job you've hired this to do? You know the ones that to me that are the most iconic and memorable turns out when you uncover their story, which I learned a lot about from your guys' book audio branding, it was intentionally designed to solve a specific business problem like McDonald's, we're gonna bring everything together, we wanna make sure that we're cohesive. Oh super iconic audio brand intel inside also super iconic. Well why is that?

(24:12):
Well it was intentionally designed to solve how do we visualize this thing in such a way? And then Walter Zoa just did a masterful job of making it this incredible sonic expression of what was going on with Intel's like very intentionally designed. So like what you're saying Colleen, what I'm hearing you say looking into the future is make sure you're working with experts that understand the space and then yeah absolutely leverage the power of AI to customize and be able to do things at scale. And so that's important. And then Larry, what I'm hearing you say is just we're at the beginning folks and when it comes to this conversational stuff and I feel like I get excited about it as a Star Trek fan computer, everybody's gonna have their own Starship enterprise, it's their phone that then it's gonna be the battle of who can you know it's gonna be Ford Motor Company or it's gonna be better help or whoever it is that there's some sort of conversational bot that you're having this conversation with or just is very useful to you. Like that's kind of the next frontier. Am I hearing you guys both right in those

Colleen Fahey (25:11):
Regards? You got an A plus and Colleen.

Stew Redwine (25:12):
Yes, same here man that feels so good and that's so great because we're about to grade somebody else's homework. Okay so I was holding back on saying who it was but so I listened to pretty much every day Wawa main man, my dog Maverick and listened to part of my morning lineup is the seven Washington Post the seven. And I started noticing these ads, I noticed that, oh I have heard this many times. I've kind of tuned it out and like finally it broke through, which was interesting is in the pre-roll, which I'm still like kind of getting my stuff together so I'm not skipping and it's Merrill Lynch or Merrill by Bank of America and uh, really love their stuff. Colleen, you had a reaction already?

Colleen Fahey (25:48):
I'm sorry I had a reaction 'cause I thought it was Merrill shoes.

Stew Redwine (25:51):
Ah, <laugh> do you do Merrill shoes? Do you do Merril footwear?

Colleen Fahey (25:55):
Yeah we do with

Stew Redwine (25:56):
Merrill Footwear, yes. Oh man I wish <laugh>, oh no, now this is just a big letdown.

Colleen Fahey (26:02):
Sorry that was a mistake.

Stew Redwine (26:03):
No it's not. It's okay. Your breath can just be taken away because you love financial planning. <laugh>, no. Okay, I'm kidding. So what I did, I did a little bit of homework and in the time we have left we're just gonna listen to a couple ads. So I took a look at it in Vix and it looks like, and you gotta take this with a grain of salt that Merrill's spending approximately 4.4 million year to date across all channels. And this is specifically looking at Merrill as an advertiser and their radio spend was something like $10,000, which is incredible. And I say that because these ads that I heard on the seven, I had a sneaking suspicion of two things. One, I think they're programmatic because I'm not able to find them in a couple other places. And then two, I think they were ported over just basically straight from radio.

(26:48):
And then so when I went in VX and I looked in radio, it was like aha, that's what I thought. So there's a couple ads we're gonna listen to that were essentially radio ads that looks like tens of thousands of dollars perhaps were spent against that. Then were ported over to podcasts, looks like purchased programmatically, which is interesting. And then we have some other podcast examples of ads that they showed up in podcast. And what's interesting in looking at Magellan year to date their spend in podcast in 2023 was $3,000 approximately. Their spend in podcast year to date this year is 1.4 million. So if we take that vs number of 4.4 million across everything and about 10,000 let's say in radio and then we look at podcast and they're doing 1.4 million, they see the light, they understand, you know, the podcast audience in general is educated, it's lean in and what we're talking about here is financial advice.

(27:38):
So all of this is contextual to listen to how Merrill's showing up in audio. And one last thing I just wanna call up before we listen to the ads is one thing I did notice in listening to these is there was one of 'em that played and the next ad, the very next ad was for a Fidelity financial advisor. Like it was incredible to me. You know, that's just something worth thinking about or noting like make sure you're auditing and that's where I'll speak up for agencies. You know, working with an agency as a specialist is like you need people auditing and listening to these ad breaks and seeing like where are you showing up? Where's the optimal spot? Is it, are you best in a pre-roll? Are you best in a mid roll? Are you first in the pod? Are you side by side with other advertisers?

(28:18):
Like you know to go straight from Merrill, maybe Meryl's the one that connected emotionally and you kind of start to pay attention but then boom, Fidelity's the next ad. You don't actually rationally kick in until the Fidelity ads plane And then I wouldn't put it past myself, my mind would just merge the two and just kind of go, oh well. And then recency bias, it'd be fidelity. I'd go with fidelity even though it was the Merrill one that primed the pump. So why don't we do this guys, I'm gonna play the one that captured my attention first and I'd love to get your guys take on it and then we'll play a couple more in the time we have remaining. So here we go.

Merrill Announcer 1 (28:55):
Say this is your financial life. Over time things can get more complex with a personalized plan, Merrill can help you navigate it all. Learn more at ml.com/bullish. Merrill a Bank of America company, what would you like the power to do?

Merrill Announcer 2 (29:16):
Investing involves risk Merrill Lynch, Pierce Ner and Smith Incorporated. Registered broker dealer, registered investment advisor member S-I-P-C-A, only owned subsidiary of Bank of America. Quote.

Stew Redwine (29:25):
All right, so what did you guys think of that ad? That's the one that cut through for this guy.

Colleen Fahey (29:28):
Yeah, I feel that they're using music as the story that your financial services life is kind of disjointed and disconnected and it might have instruments that are associated with elegance and trust, but the way they're playing together is dissonant. So then they're offering that they could bring it all together through Merrill.

Stew Redwine (29:51):
Yeah and I just, the way that they did that with the audio I thought was so cool. What about you Larry?

Larry Minsky (29:55):
I got the dissident part at the beginning with all of it, but it still felt a little dissonant at the end where I probably could have been a little bit more reassuring at the end. There you go. All right. There's always room for

Stew Redwine (30:06):
Improvement. So from an information transfer standpoint, like I thought what they did well was, you know, say this is your financial life and they give you the a metaphor of it kind of sounding disjointed and it gets more complex and then you know, they do bring it together. They could give you more description of exactly how that works. But man this is a tough one because you know, another thing you have at work here is that disclaimer, that's almost about a third of the ad.

Larry Minsky (30:32):
Yeah, you have to figure out how to handle that and still be part of the brand without calling too much attention to the disclaimer part because you have to go fast with that. You know financial is an interesting area in that besides paper money, anything beyond paper money, it's virtual. So it's more conceptual and music helps

Colleen Fahey (30:51):
Make it tangible.

Stew Redwine (30:52):
Yeah, yeah. So what's interesting to me, like I said, I've been hearing this one and I finally, I was like, you know what, I just wanna talk about this ad. So just in the last like two days they switched it up <laugh> or no, today I think it was the same. So yeah this ad is from like nine 19, we're talking at nine 20 and then I have the one from nine 20. That's different. So who knows, are they switching it up or they just varying it? But here, let me play you the one now from nine 20 and see what you guys think of how they used audio in this one. Here we go.

Merrill Announcer 1 (31:21):
You want a straightforward path to your goals, but at Merrill we know things may get in the way or if new opportunities can put you at a crossroads but the bullet, you're

Merrill Announcer 3 (31:30):
Back, I found a better route.

Merrill Announcer 1 (31:31):
You get a personalized plan, turn left and a clear path forward. Go to ml.com/bullish to learn more. Merrill a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do?

Merrill Announcer 2 (31:42):
Investing involves risk, Merrill Lynch, Pierce Finner and Smith Incorporated, registered broker dealer, registered investment advisor, member S-I-P-C-A wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America corporate.

Stew Redwine (31:52):
Alright, so identical advertiser, same program, one day difference. Those are the two different ads that I heard on my morning walk. What do you guys think of how they showed up in this one? And then given that context of like the preceding ad and this ad,

Colleen Fahey (32:06):
I feel that the brand manager doesn't have a real clear idea of whether they wanna make it a folksy brand like that was done with the instrument that sounds maybe like a ukulele or something in the second ad versus the classical instruments in the first ad. So it was confusing to me as to a brand, what is this brand trying to be? I wanna say that the voice is just great. I love the person's voice, she's distinctive, she's warm, she doesn't sound like every other often male, 38-year-old announcer and I think they're really hitting well on that and they probably did their homework.

Larry Minsky (32:42):
Yeah, I'm missing the consistency as well. I thought the first ad cut through much better than the second one. But what is the brand? Is it more the sound of the second or is it more the sound of the first? You could change to instrumentation but there needs to be something that you walk away with that's distinctive and consistent and I didn't get that.

Stew Redwine (33:01):
Yeah, it's interesting to me that if you were to translate those two visually, how different would they feel? And I think it's easier to go wider in audio to create two outputs that you tell yourself are in the same zone. But like if you're really honest about it and not that anybody's being dishonest, but it's just like, you know, it's hard to keep your, maintain your objectivity, right? Or if I have two colors that are side by side, I don't know if you guys can even see me, but it's like yellow and blue. Are these the same? You know? Well I guess they're both kind of pastels, but it's like, I mean this is yellow, this is blue. So from a sound standpoint, you know, another thing that I noticed to your guys' point is like with the bullet your back. So I think that's great. That's a cool idea, cool image. And there's a lot of associations that comes along with that that's not in the classical one, but it is in the folksy one, there's another inconsistency. So we have a tagline we didn't use both times. So we had a style of music we didn't use both times.

Colleen Fahey (33:56):
It seems to me that it's the same voice across both and that's the one consistent part that might make people feel that it is the same brand.

Stew Redwine (34:05):
Yeah, I think you're right. And if it's not the exact same voice, the voice feels in the zone. And so then you could think, well that's my consistent piece and so I'm gonna show up, you know, in these produced spots slightly differently. And you know, maybe it could be happenstance that at some point you do wanna change creative, right? And did we just happen to catch them on the day that they flipped over to the new creative? Is that the case? But even if it is, they do feel more different than they feel the same. And I'm one that's normally willing to go pretty far in trying to see the connections between things that aren't necessarily connected. But if I back off of that kind of predisposition, it's like, yeah, the voice might be the same, but in a lot of ways these ads don't feel cohesive.

Colleen Fahey (34:46):
It feels like two brands.

Larry Minsky (34:48):
You have to start with the audio brand and then write the radio spot and then score the spot based on the audio brand. To me it feels like, and obviously I wasn't part of the process, but I'm guessing they wrote the spot, they recorded the spot probably with the same voiceover artist and then they went and sent 'em off to be scored. And it may not be even scored by the same person, but without the notes of what is the audio brand. That's how it feels like.

Colleen Fahey (35:16):
I think they need a sonic brand. Yes.

Stew Redwine (35:18):
Yeah, it seems like it. I'm excited about 'cause I like how they're showing up. I like that they're showing up but they're swinging. One simple thing you can do, like tis the season, we're rewatching the Harry Potter films as a family and in Harry Potter one, I think it's the very first one we were just watching it, they're walking up to Hagrid, spoiler alert, spoiler alert, alert. At one point the kids are walking up to Haggard at his little hut and he's playing the Harry Potter soundtrack sound on his little wood flute of all the things he could be playing. So for me it's like even if you took the melody from the folksy song or the melody from the classical song and cross pollinated, that's one you don't have to hem in. Well you know, I can't express it differently. You can, but that would be interesting is like what if the melody was consistent even in different forms of music? What do you guys think of that? That would work,

Colleen Fahey (36:07):
That would work pretty well. But sometimes it's nice to have a texture that's recognizable by your audience because textures stay in people's minds as much as melody. And that's something that I think more people could consider when they're designing, especially their sonic logo that people will recognize that, oh, it's this high and vibrating sound that's inside the music. Or a low thumping sound or something rich and dense or something very simple and clear. So texture can also be very evocative of your brand and its meaning.

Stew Redwine (36:44):
Great points. It's just, it's really what I'm getting from you both. And then you know, same from the experience of reading the book is like just be thoughtful and be intentional about it as what's the emotional response you're trying to get from the audience? What's your communication goal? What's your business goal? Like the why, why, why, why this, why this, why this? So let's listen to two more back to back and then we'll wrap up our summary on how Meryl's showing up. So this is also in podcast where they seem to be spending the majority of their money when it comes to audio. And this one is from the windup from just a couple weeks ago. So here we go. And then a media on the heels of that'll play an example from NPR.

Merrill Announcer 3 (37:22):
This episode is supported by Merrill with a dedicated Merrill advisor. You get a personalized plan for your financial goals and when plans change, Merrill's with you every step of the way, go to ml.com/bullish to learn more. Merrill a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk, Merrill Lynch, Pierce Fenner and Smith Incorporated. Registered broker dealer registered investment advisor, member SIPC.

Stew Redwine (37:48):
Hey

Merrill Announcer 1 (37:49):
Fidelity.

Stew Redwine (37:51):
Oh that's the one.

Merrill Announcer 3 (37:52):
Oh yeah,

Stew Redwine (37:52):
The immediate ad following that one was, Hey Fidelity, can I remember to invest every month with the Fidelity app? That's the example. So note to the team at the windup, I would recommend breaking those ads up or choosing one of the other as far as advertisers go. Okay, next up is the final example from podcast. This is from npr, R'S shortwave with uh Merrill ad.

Merrill Announcer 4 (38:14):
Pardon? This message comes from NPR sponsor, Meryl, whatever your financial goals are, you want a straightforward path there, but the real world doesn't usually work that way. Merrill understands that. That's why with a dedicated Merrill advisor you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. Go to ml.com/bullish to learn more. Merrill a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk, Merrill Lynch, Pierce Fenner and Smith Incorporated, registered broker dealer, registered investment advisor, member SIPC

Stew Redwine (38:45):
With those two announcer red examples and then the produced ones that we heard as well. What's your guys' overall reaction here?

Colleen Fahey (38:52):
I missed the music and I miss the warmth of that other voice. It's very clear but it seems more rational without the music

Larry Minsky (38:59):
And you don't have to have the music under the entire spot. But at the end when they recite the tagline, some little accent, some little punctuation at the end with the music would just reinforce the brand.

Colleen Fahey (39:10):
The other thing was that the first voice seemed awfully young for a an investment advisor. It gave me the impression that my investment advisor might not be very experienced. I know that that's the announcer's voice, but I felt the youth of that person and she even had a little bit of Valley girl vocal fry at the end of some of her sentences. So it made me think she was too young for Meryl.

Stew Redwine (39:34):
Those are interesting observations. You know, I look at it, it's like if you're not gonna show up with a produced spot, if you're gonna do an announcer red spot, you know a couple thoughts. One is to your guys' point, it's like well define what kind of announcer you would use. I mean ideally you're getting a host red spot with a personal endorsement. Like if you're gonna go there, go there. That's how you go fully there, right? If host red spot with a personal endorsement are the closest thing you can get to that. If you're going to be using a producer red spot, like basically we just heard, you know, you could define the texture, the tone or even something that sticks out to me is like what would you like the power to do? What would you like the power to do? What would you like the power to do? Even telling people, instructing them on how to say your tagline properly.

Colleen Fahey (40:18):
I think you're absolutely right that if you are going to deliver a tagline, there should be a way, an intention, a vocal intention for that tagline. And it can't be a polite girl saying it in a nice way. If it's a powerful tagline, what would you like the power to do? I think you're right. I think that you definitely should guide the announcer in how to act the tagline.

Stew Redwine (40:45):
Yeah, that's one of those nuances of a sonic brand of going, how am I showing up so they can recognize me with my eyes closed? Is that I sound the same wherever I show up. So in looking at these through the audio lytics lens, we graded them as well. On average blended score for all of these came in at a 74%, which makes sense to me. There's some work that could be done to be a little bit more clear on exactly how does it work. That stuff does matter if you know it's on what time horizon are we measuring success? So let's say we were trying to get people to sign up and take action immediately. There's certain things that we can do to improve these and I think it's really important to call out that. I was just looking at it across all of them.

(41:29):
It's more like fully half of these ads are disclaimer, I had said third earlier, but I was looking at it and it's like, you know, at 15 seconds outta 30 they switch to disclaimer at 17 seconds outta 30 they switch to disclaimer, it's a choice or it's a reality. I will say, I guess, you know, I thought in the DU spots they have the music going under the disclaimer, which is still kind of an nice, and they didn't cram the disclaimer, which is a choice, which to me actually communicates a little bit higher value or a little bit more upmarket as opposed to having to disclaim

Colleen Fahey (41:59):
A little more honesty.

Stew Redwine (42:00):
Yes, thank you. Honesty. So those are some choices, but if you could, you know, we talk a lot about making every word count. If you could lower the word count a little bit, some places to look to improve these would be what's a reason people need to do this now why should they take action right now based on this? Especially if you're testing into a channel, and I look at these levels of spend in audio and it kind of makes me think, well they're testing and scaling in here. Is there specific real world examples that you could use as well? That's always a powerful thing. So like what is an offer or reason an incentive for them to take action right now? What are some real world examples from real life Merrill customers that you could integrate, especially on those announcer red ads where like we're kind of all saying there's not much happening there.

(42:41):
And then again, like just tightening it where let's make every word count so that we can really tighten up and explain how does this thing work? Give ourselves more opportunity to do that and perhaps not spend so much time in the disclaimer. I can see, and I've lived the rationale to get to that point and it's kind of like people lose their fight. They just like, well whatever we've gotta do that. It's like, I've noticed if you keep going back to legal, I'd be willing to put good money on. I bet you could cut that disclaimer in half without having to speed it up. Or maybe, you know, split the baby. Maybe you speed it up a little bit and lower the word count. But those are kind of my final thoughts on hearing how Meryl showing up in audio, particularly in podcast and it looks like quite a bit of their spin is in podcasts so they see the value here. What are your guys' overall kind of closing reactions to how Meryl's showing up in podcast?

Larry Minsky (43:31):
So in closing, to add on to what Colleen said about voice acting and a little bit about what you said and something that I have to work with a lot of my students on when they're writing radio and students automatically seem to go to the announcer spot as opposed the announcer or you do the little mini radio drama, but more so with the announcer spot is what is the motivation of the announcer to tell you this information? They think about a generic announcer and then they write a generic spot of here's the information the client wants me to convey or the brand manager wants me to convey, but really is who is this announcer? What is the motivation of this person telling me this piece of information? And then when you get to the motivation, then it will inform what the read is. We have to say this legal, but we wanna be honest, we wanna be helpful, we want you to understand this information. If you just got that then everything else will be pushed that much better.

Colleen Fahey (44:28):
And then I would say that you should be disciplined about your sonic brand so that you create colors and shapes that people can hold in their minds and recognition that this spot is the same as that spot. And it will help hold it all together and help people understand that somebody is talking to you in many different places through different methods, but it's the same company with the same values.

Larry Minsky (44:56):
If you're doing a podcaster led spot based on that, it won't be coming from the brand, it will be coming from the podcaster. You should shape your message accordingly. So it feels like here I the podcaster is talking about the brand versus here I, the brand is talking about our message.

Stew Redwine (45:15):
You obviously wrote the book on audio branding experts. I was gonna ask for more of a summary, but I think those two are massive and so we will land the plane there, prepare for landing. Thank you for the chief audio officers that are listening is be disciplined about your Sonic brand here, here. And Larry is one of those like, oh yeah, so good. What's the motivation of your announcers? I love that it's so simple. Like just think about it. You could just jot something down, but even if you just challenged yourself with that, what I love about that is it humanizes it just a touch and it just makes you stop and you think, so two great pieces of advice for the chief audio officers that are listening. Even if you're just doing talking points, which is often how I hear it, you know, referred to as like, well it's just talking points.

(45:55):
Well why? What are we trying to accomplish? And what is this person that's gonna be saying this thinking, what is their motivation for communicating this information to the listener? And then Colleen, like you said, be disciplined in how you show up in audio. Colleen Larry, it was a few months in the making since Larry initially reached out on LinkedIn, but was so worth the wait. Thank you so much for joining us on ad infinitum and for sharing your expertise in audio branding, sonic branding. Where can listeners go to learn more about your guys' work and how to contact either of you? And thank you again.

Colleen Fahey (46:31):
You are welcome. So I think the easiest way to contact me is LinkedIn, Colleen Fahe at CZM Song. I won't even bother to spell it. You can find the person who does sonic branding.

Larry Minsky (46:41):
Yeah, the easiest way to find me was probably on LinkedIn as well, even though I published under Lawrence Minsky. My LinkedIn is Larry Minsky, so just go to LinkedIn and you could reach out, you could reach out via Columbia College Chicago as well. My contact information at Columbia is available too. Well, sorry, one more place. You could go to my author page on Amazon to find all of my books. I have about 10 books

Stew Redwine (47:03):
Outstanding. Start with audio branding. I'm telling you, it's just a suggestion. If we were in a burning building, I would suggest that you run out of the building. It's just a suggestion. Listen to audio branding by Larry Minsky and Colleen Fahe and then jump into voice marketing as well. Obviously they know what they are talking about. And also visit magellan.ai/add infinitum to sign up for a free demo of the Magellan platform. That's what we use to analyze the top spenders and podcasts for the show. So you can go to magellan.ai/add infinitum to get a free demo of the Magellan podcast platform. And to our listeners, if you have enjoyed today's episode, we'd love for you to show us some love with an honest five star review. And if there's a specific audio ad or brand jingle that's stuck in your head and you'd like us to talk about it or anything else going on in the world of audio advertising that you want us to talk about, drop me a note at stew@oxfordroad.com. That's STE w@oxfordroad.com. And then tell next time, remember to have fun making the ads work.